The Black Rock chicken
The perfect free range bird for roaming around gardens as strong productive layers.
THE ONLY COMMERCIAL BROWN EGG LAYING BIRD SO WELL SUITED FOR ALL EXTENSIVE SYSTEMS : gardens, crofts, smallholdings, farms. These birds are NOT suited to small coops and runs and we choose not to sell birds into that sort of environment - it is not good husbandry for any birds. 

2012 batches of young Black Rocks : we will only be raising small numbers of batches of chicks this year. Book early for our wonderful girls.  All our birds are reared free range as soon as they are well feathered enough. Few pullet growers do this, others save time and costs for more profit by raising birds in barns until they are 18 weeks old . Our rearing system, proven over more than 2 decades in Argyll produces the strongest youngstock we can. Being outside as they grow up through their teenage years means that their immune system develops well, their feathering is the best it can be, and they have no behaviour issues that result from being kept in intensive conditions like most young birds. All in all, this gives the birds by far and away the best start in life, much better than those kept in increasingly dense populations in sheds until they get thrown out into peoples gardens at 18 weeks old. Our birds are well prepared for life outside. We want them that way. : we always keep birds from each batch for our own laying flock, another way we differ from other growers.  If you have facilities to keep growers with no others, lots of space and fresh grazing, then youngstock can go from 12 weeks old If you are putting your new birds in with an existing flock, they have to be 18 weeks or over. We sometimes have a small number of 3 year old Black Rocks from our own laying flocks, who will make great garden pets. PLEASE book early - we always run out of birds before they are ready to go.

Our birds are only available from the farm here, we do not deliver, and there are no national carriers who transport birds. You must book birds well in advance, as we are always working on a list well ahead in time, and also arrange collection dates at least 2 days before coming. Please do not just arrive expecting to collect birds any time. If you are not in driving distance of us you can check out the other growers supplied by the hatchery here. Beware , there are relatively few Black Rocks being hatched these days, so many growers are raising the much weaker similar looking hybrids but calling them Black Rocks

Why is this chicken better than the rest of the commercial hybrids? - in our view it is because of her thick feathering protecting her from the elements, her size which insulates her from wet and cold, her vigour of health and immune system, her ability to produce strong egg shells for years so reducing the chances of fatal egg peritonitis, and to keep laying pretty well in to her dotage.

Why is this chicken better than pure breeds for domestic egg production? - this is because she will lay more than any pure breeds in the UK nowadays, and she is more cost effective in terms of the amount she eats for each egg. Unlike the pure breeds who have had little consistent selection for good productivity in 90% of the current strains, Peter Siddons, the original breeder of the Black Rock in the country, maintained an exceptionally high standards of breeding, which, now Peter has finally retired, has now been taken on by his family and Eddie Lovett.
The Black Rock is a consistantly good bird in all kinds of free range conditions. Over the past decades we have sold birds around Scotland and they have coped, nay thrived, in some of the most inhospitable places.
It is very unkind to put the commercial hybrids, with their weak feathering, poor immune systems, limited ranging, and high food value demands, outside in some of our exposed garden, croft and smallholding situations. It's a terrible thing to do to ex-battery birds, which have known only a completely protected environment for all their lives. Few gardens in most of the UK provide anything like the sort of environment they need.
Unfortunately chickens are far too stoic for their own good, and put up with so much humans throw at them, in the name of providing us with food and then in salving some sort of anthropomorphic conscience about it.
In constrast the likes of most pure breeds and birds like the Black Rock have been given the qualities by our breeding over the generations to really be able to thrive in the vagaries of the outside world.
Living outside is not without its significant challenges -- weather, wild birds and disease, food quality, and if badly managed mud, mites and other stresses.

What is a Black Rock hen? - the Black Rock hen is an extremely attractive bird, predominantly black with variable amounts of chestnut colouring around the neck. She is very productive, laying up to 280 eggs a year in ideal conditions. In most domestic situations, which are rarely ideal in productivity terms, they are still generous enough to give over 230 or more eggs a year.
She is bred from very special and uniquely selected strains of Rhode Island Red andBarred Plymouth Rock from a single hatchery in the East of Scotland. This is the ONLY source of Black Rock birds. All the grand-parent and parent stock are bred by the one hatchery. Fortunately there are people around the country who, like us, take youngsters, from day old chicks upwards, and grow them on to pullets ready for you to take on, so that the birds are available to you for your situation. There is a link to acknowledged growers, like us, around the country here.
Obviously we can only supply birds to people who can come and collect them from the farm here. We free range rear all our birds and are limited in the numbers we can raise each year by the weather and amount of housing we have. Frequently we are booked up well in advance of the birds going away.

Why do we free range rear -- click here to find out more and what we advise if you cannot get free range reared birds locally.

BEWARE :- There are increasing numbers of extremely unscrupulous chicken owners (AND Dealers) who are crossing vastly inferior quality birds of the two breeds and selling eggs and birds to the unsuspecting as Black Rocks. If you are offered hatching eggs from Black Rocks somewhere like these auction sites, you know you are dealing with someone who is lying to you. If you want to check whether a person selling Black Rock birds is genuine contact the Black Rock Hatchery directly, don't email or phone us, we do not know all Eddie's growers.
Chicken keeping is very fashionable these day and there are always those who have no skills, who plagerise the work of others. While the birds may look similar, for obvious reasons, they will not perform in the same way and will never have the quality of the Black Rock. I have even seen pictures of exhibition type birds being used as parents. They will be a serious disappointment as a strong laying bird.
There are NO hatching eggs for sale, anywhere in the country. Any offered are fraudulent. (Ebay take note!)

More about the true Black Rock qualities :- click here

Tim and Jill Bowis
Kintaline Mill Farm, Benderloch, OBAN Argyll PA37 1QS Scotland
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